Sort of. I still have another month at my campsite in Port Townsend before I can hit the road again. Still have another doctor appointment and jury duty to attend to first. But a new adventure has begun in my headspace.
First, let me assure you that I am continuing to make progress on Wayzgoose's A Place Among Peers and on my new story, Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2. It's not unusual for me to have multiple projects going at the same time, which is probably why it seems so slow with only one story currently posting.
And let me tell you, I'm overwhelmed by the reader response to The Assassin. The comments here on SOL have been stellar. It's getting over 5,000 downloads per chapter. And it's currently my all-time best-seller on bookapy! Can't indulge myself with alcohol anymore, according to my cardiologist, but I'm raising an extra glass of sparkling water to the success. I'll also toss out the suggestion that you don't need to be familiar with "The Swarm Cycle" universe to enjoy this character-driven sci fi. Take a gander.
Now, where was I. Oh, yes. New adventure.
Like most old men, I wake up three to seven times a night. Either my mouth is all dried out, I need to pee, or I've worked my way into an uncomfortable position. But Monday morning, I woke up with a vivid dream that simply demanded that I start putting things down on paper. So, I got up at 4:00 in the morning Monday and started making notes. After I made a page of notes so I wouldn't forget it, I put it in my 'idea file' and went to work on new chapters of APAP and Dark Side. I felt very accomplished with both, so I saw no problem with pulling the idea file out and toying with an intro to see if I could manage a decent voice for telling the story. That worked okay, so I started a first chapter. And a second. Right now, I've got six chapters finished and another in the hopper!
This story follows an underdeveloped, nearsighted boy in small-town Iowa and how he finds acceptance among the members of the girls' basketball team that he manages.
Of course, this is just a first draft. GMBusman has been reading the drafts and responding to them, so it seems to be keeping his interest. Otherwise, I'll start posting the first draft for my Sausage Grinder patrons ($10/month) on Patreon next Sunday.
And oh, what I am learning!
I decided on a whim to set the story in a small town in central Iowa. So, of course, I had to start looking up small towns to get a feel for them. Since it's another coming of age story with some of my favorite ingredients, I had to check out the rules and regulations regarding Girls' Basketball in the state. Was that ever an education! Check out the IGHSAU website and look at their history for some fascinating info.
Since there has to be complications in a story like this, I had to look up the laws about moonshine in Iowa and then compare them with the national regulations on distilling, bottling, and selling moonshine. Yes, there actually are some federal regulations on the process. I happen to have part of a bottle of shine my nephew made in West Virginia and I'm pretty sure I could use it to strip the paint off old furniture.
Then there was information I needed from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). That's pretty interesting. The DEA has a very active branch in Des Moines if you happen to want a job with them. Des Moines sits at the crossroads of Interstate 80, connecting Salt Lake City in the West and Chicago in the East, and Interstate 35, connecting Minneapolis/St. Paul in the North with Dallas/Fort Worth in the South. As such, it is a major distribution point for both the cartels of Mexico and the traffickers of Canada (according to the DEA site). Methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and marijuana seem to be high on their strike list. Plus a resurgence in heroin use as a cheaper high than prescription drugs. What's a small-town dealer to do?
And, of course, I needed some added information to flesh out my main character, the new Team Manager for the Girls' Basketball team. What are the duties and responsibilities of a high school team manager and how can they be stretched into all kinds of compromising situations? And what is the short, near-sighted team manager going to be thinking among all the statuesque girls of the team? Sounds like a recipe for some new hijinks in one of my favorite subjects. Girls.
I'm going to start posting raw chapters for my Patreon subscribers at the $10 level next Sunday. Those are drafts that are unedited and straight from my keyboard, but if you want to see it first, that's the place. I have no idea yet how long it will take before I have it ready to post on SOL in a clean and edited version. I would guess sometime this summer. I foresee the possibility of an epic run for this story.
It's good to be feeling like my old self and to be able to pump out 40,000 words in a good week. It's been a while coming.
Woohoo!